This invention relates generally to motor control devices and particularly to such devices for use with motor controlled data terminals.
Data terminals such as teletypewriters, line printers and the like are usually powered by an internal motor and adapted to print out data characters received from a local or remote data processor. Prior to the receipt of data characters by the data terminal, its internal motor must be running at its normal operating speed to ensure that the characters are printed correctly. If the data terminal attempts to print the received characters before its internal motor reaches its normal operating speed, the result may be an incorrect printout.
To avoid the problem of incorrectly printing a data character before the motor reaches its normal operating speed, some data terminals use heavy duty motors which run constantly. More often, a lighter duty motor is used with a timer which turns the motor off when the data terminal has not received a data character for printing within a predetermined interval, such as one and one half minutes, for example. Such terminals restart the motor upon receipt of a data character but are not capable of accurately printing out a received character until after the motor has reached its normal operating speed.